Central-North-Caucasian

Cities in the Field of

Attraction between

Uplands and Lowlands

Alexander Drozdov and Olga Glezer

Institute of Geography

of the Russian Academy of Sciences

drozdov2009@gmail.com

yalog@rambler.ru

Main points

1. Territory and objects, origin of the cities

2. Two types of the cities: resorts and

capitals - history and economy

3. Changes in urban-rural linkages

4. Tourism: before the 1990s, nowadays,

plans for future

5. What will be reasonable?

The Main Caucasian Ridge is

more than 1000 km long

The central part of North

Caucasus

Cities under consideration

City Status Population

Cherkessk

Nal’chik

Vladikavkaz

Capital

Capital

Capital

~ 117 000

~ 270 000

~ 310 000

Pyatigorsk

Yessentuki

Kislovodsk

Resort

Resort

Resort

> 200 000

~ 81 000

~ 130 000

Active period of the conquest of

North Caucasus, 1842-1849

Evidence of resorts history.

Kislovodsk as a fortification, 1803

Resorts, more evidence

Kislovodsk, some other evidence,

left – 1920, right - 2009

Resorts, structure of economy

Holiday-makers in sanatoria,

thousands of people

Years

Resorts

1960 1990 2000 2005

Kislovodsk

Yessentuki

Pyatigorsk

Zhelezno-

vodsk

163,3

106,6

57,9

42,8

283,0

245,6

210,5

121,2

61,2

28,1

33,2

31,3

106,4

65,3

49,6

56,8

Total 370,5 860,3 153,8 278,1

Evidence of capitals history.

Nal’chik, XIX, XX, XXI centures

Nal’chik (left) and Republic in total,

branches of industry (%), 1992

Republic in total,

economy structure (%), 2009

Metallurgy - 6

Electric energy – 17

Light industry – 4

Food production – 40

Agriculture and others – 33

There is no reliable data about tourism – only approximate estimations: for example, the

annual number of visitors in El’brus area coming from the cities can turn 150 000 people

Evidence of Vladikavkaz history,

XIX and XXI centures

Changes after the 1990s

General:

decay of agriculture and industry,

aggravation of ethnic problems,

complicated migratory processes

Specific for:

resorts – variation in number of clients but

conservation of main function

capitals – decrease of heavy industry,

generation of conflicts, search of investors

Typical streams caused

uplands-lowlands tension,

before and nowadays

Many thousands of sheep

on the way to lowlands

The area of tourism

development in 1970-1980

Three zones, number

of tourists

Zones 1999 2003

Nortern piedmont

836 000 485 000

(spa-resorts)

Montainous 212 000 ?

Black sea coast 2 285 000 6 100 000

The mountainous zone now -

chaotic development

There are ambitious plans

for 2020: to construct mountain

hotels for ~150 000 visitors

They can bring

to many

conflicts with

nature conservation,

traditional land use

etc

They can be dangerous due to

avalanches, mudflows etc

However new plans are developed…

It will be reasonable to try

to adapt new plans to

contemporary social-

economical-ecological situation

and:

1. To understand that in the next 10 years

agriculture and heavy industry can’t

developed significant

2. To do something in the field of tourism

(it is probably possible)

In the field of tourism

1. To continue the main function of spa-resorts, but to expand one-day excursions from there in the mountains to 3-5 days;

2. To develop mountain tourism and also recreation of inhabitants of regional capitals and big cities, but:

to use landscape planning to reduce conflicts;

to organize ecological and social expertise

of new development plans;

to defend nature reserves from aggressive business;

to improve quality of service etc

Thank you !